Behind the Bruins’ Tim Thomas, Pekka Rinne was certainly the second-best goaltender in the NHL this season.

In the playoffs so far, he might’ve taken over as the best.

After getting no goal support in Game 1 with Vancouver, Rinne finally received a little offensive backing last night, although it took double overtime for his Nashville club to prevail, 2-1, in Game 2 of the Western Conference semifinal series between the teams.

Rinne made sure the Predators had a chance by stopping 32 of 33 shots, including 11 of 11 in the overtime periods. For his efforts, Rinne is the TheBruinsBlog.net Star of the Night.

Many of Rinne’s stops in the extra sessions were jaw-droppers, reminiscent of saves made by some of the greats of the game.

“It’s one of those things. You have no choice. It’s sudden death, and you try to be ready for every single situation, every single shot and go from there. It was easy to stay focused tonight, especially in overtime. It seemed like they were shooting the puck a little bit more. It’s always a fun one when that happens.”

The underdog Preds are now even with Vancouver heading home for Game 3 and 4. If Rinne can keep on at this rate, it’ll be really tough for the Canucks to avoid a long series.

Yeah-just imagine what the Flyers would look like if they had a goalie even half as good as Rinne.

I think this series is proof that goal tending matters-because even a deep and talented team in front of the net can make mistakes and they need to be able to trust a goalie to bail them out at times. I don’t think any of the three Flyers goalies inspire that kind of confidence.

Rinne had a great game – but so did Luongo. Really feel for RL – softest of soft goals at a really bad time.

Rinne is pretty incredible. He’s huge in net with a style similar to Rask, but is cat quick for such a huge guy. Long way to the Cup, and though Nashville has holes in their roster – Rinne is the last guy I want to see at the other end. He’s really really solid, and he’ll give his team a chance every night.

I Rinne definitely earned his star-without his goal tending the Preds would be out of this quick. He is one talented goalie (and while I think Thomas is a lock on the Vezina this year-Rinne is definitely a future winner). Just imagine what a more offensively talented team could do with him in their goal. He also seems pretty clutch when it comes to tight games.

I would love to see the Preds pull out the win, but I just don’t think they have the fire power to do it, but I think it will be a long series with one or two goal wins.

Loved the fact that the Krejci line woke up against the Flyers. I think the match ups were the biggest flaw and I fully expect Lavi to use his home ice and change that next round. Our guys were still skating circles around their defense though and it is pretty clear Pronger isn’t 100% yet-there were moments where he looked like he was standing still. Pronger hates to lose though and I expect him to dig deep and do better next game.